a.]
Fortune that first shows like nectar, and finally appears as
poison,
Chaining the senses to the world, belongs to the realm of passion.
[Rajas.]
Fortune that immediately and thereafter strikes the soul with
delusion,
In sleep, indolence, laziness, such Fortune belongs to darkness."
[Tamas.]

"Passion" and "darkness," Rajas and Tamas, (in alchemy indicated by
[Symbol: Fire] and [Symbol: Water], also often by [Symbol: Mars] and
[Symbol: Venus]) indicate the wrong way, the peril in introversion. They
lead to what Gorres (Christl. Myst.) describes as the "demoniac" mysticism
as opposed to the divine mysticism. All mystic manuals warn us of the
wrong way and emphasize often that we can easily lose the way even where
there is good intention. The evil one knows how, by illusions, to make the
false way deceptively like the right one, so that the righteous man, who
is not on his guard, may get unsuspectingly into the worst entanglements.
Careful examination of himself, exact observation of the effect of the
spiritual exercises, is to be laid to heart by every one. Yet powers come
into play that have their roots in the deepest darkness of the soul (in
the unconscious) and which are withdrawn from superficial view. [After
this had been written I read a short paper of Dr. Karl Furtmueller,
entitled "Psychoanalyse und Ethik," and find there, p. 5, a passage which
I reproduce here on account of its agreement with my position. I must
state at the outset that according to Furtmueller, psychoanalysis is
peculiarly qualified to arouse suspicion against the banal conscience,
which leads self-examination into the realm of the conscious only, with
neglect of the unconscious impulses, which are quite as important for the
performance of actions. The passage of interest to us here reads: "There
is no lack of intimation that these fundamental facts which place the
whole of life in a new perspective, were recognized or suspected even in
earlier times. If early Christianity believed that demons could overpower
the heart of man in the sense that they assumed the voice of God, and the
man believed that, while really doing the devil's work he was doing the
work of God, then that sounds like a symbolic representation of the play
of the forces that are described above." The play of these forces was
indeed known to cultivated religious peoples of all times. As for
C